Nicholas Kristof, "Looking for Lessons in Newtown": Let's Also Look for Lessons in Norway

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Looking for Lessons in Newtown" (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/kristof-looking-for-lessons-in-newtown.html?_r=0), Nicholas Kristof responds to comments from readers who disagree with his prior op-ed calling for stricter gun control laws (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/nicholas-kristof-do-we-have-courage-to.html). Specifically, Kristof addresses criticism from a reader who observes that Norway's restrictive gun control laws did not prevent the 2011 summer camp massacre:

"What happened in Newtown, Conn., was heartbreaking, but gun laws are feel-good measures that don’t make a difference. Norway has very restrictive gun laws, but it had its own massacre of 77 people.

It’s true that the 1994 assault weapons ban was not very effective, even before it expired (partly because it had trouble defining assault weapons, and partly because handguns kill more people than assault rifles). But if that law’s ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines had still been in effect, Adam Lanza, the gunman in Newtown, might have had to reload three times as often.

As for Norway, its laws did not prevent the massacre there last year. But, in a typical year, Norway has 10 or fewer gun murders. The United States has more than that in eight hours."

As all who read this blog know, I favor a ban on the sale of assault rifles. I also favor a ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines. However, as someone who has served many years in the military, it takes only seconds to replace a magazine, and this is not the core problem.

Let's indeed compare the United States with Norway. The US leads the world in gun ownership with an average of 88.8 firearms per 100 people (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2012/jul/22/gun-homicides-ownership-world-list). As further observed by this Guardian article, the firearm murder rate in the US is 2.97 per 100,000 people, which is the 28th highest in the world.

Norway has an average of 31.3 firearms per 100 people, but a firearm murder rate of only 0.05 per 100,000 people.

Although gun ownership in Norway is some 35 percent of that in the US, the firearm murder rate of Norway is less than two percent of that in the US.

In short, it's not just the guns or the high-capacity magazines that are responsible for America's significantly higher firearm murder rate.

As I asked yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/new-york-times-editorial-yawning.html), is it even remotely possible that the graphic violence routinely beamed into American living rooms has made it that much easier for persons with violent inclinations to pull the trigger as a matter of course?

Sure, you like watching "Game of Thrones" and "Homeland" as much as I do, but what is the effect on young minds?

Place restrictions on Hollywood's ability to broadcast raw violence? That could engender problems involving the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment, but perhaps this plague of violence also needs to be examined from this angle - something Kristof and Hollywood might or might not appreciate.